


When a Family Comes Together

by Amon_Rawya



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Fainting, Fear, Friendship, Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Nick Burkhardt Whump, Non-Sexual, Pain, Platonic Relationships, Protectiveness, Team as Family, Vulnerability, Whump, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amon_Rawya/pseuds/Amon_Rawya
Summary: Nick Burkhardt is missing. His friends are frantic trying to find him, but it seems all hope is lost - the Grimm has vanished without a trace.That is, until he drags himself out of some God-forsaken woodland and nearly gets run over. However, it's clear once they are reunited that something awful has happened to their friend, and it won't go away easily.
Relationships: Nick Burkhardt & Hank Griffin, Nick Burkhardt & Monroe, Nick Burkhardt & Rosalee Calvert, Rosalee Calvert/Monroe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Home Again

The world felt wrong. Monroe wondered why it didn't stop the instant Nick disappeared; how could nothing have changed for anyone else?

Obviously, the logical answer is not everyone knew the detective personally, or at all. For the majority of Portland, he was another name in the paper. But for a handful of people, each waking moment rang hollow with the absence of their friend.

Getting up for the third time that night, the blutbad stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Dark bags had gathered under his eyes, the product of several months worth of restless sleep. In the dark of his irises, not a hint of red remained. The blutbad in him lacked the motivation to do anything, just like the human.

If he possessed the energy, he would've rolled his eyes and made a sarcastic comment about a Wesen getting so worked up about the safety of a Grimm.

But the truth was Monroe felt hopeless; they'd been searching for three months. Three whole months since Nick left his house to go home, and never got there. The guilt tore him up every second of every day - if he asked him to stay, if he took him home instead of letting the Grimm go alone -

"Monroe, stop it."

Rosalee appeared next to him in the mirror, hair a mess and eyes just as tired. Yet somehow, she still managed to smile. The sight twisted in Monroe's heart, and he immediately felt guilty for it. Despite knowing full well she worried as much as he did, getting in and out of bed all the time certainly didn't help matters.

"None of us could have done anything," she said, in the same logical and cool tone her clients heard, "we didn't know what was going to happen when we watched him leave that night."

Monroe turned, face full of despair, to face his girlfriend. "We still don't know what happened, Rosalee. He's just...gone."

She nodded her head, rubbing his shoulder. "I know. It's taking a toll on all of us - Hank is only alive because Wu is forcing him to look after himself. Trubel's been all across Portland looking for Nick and found nothing. None of Bud's efforts have turned up anything, even Renard has been trying to find him."

Allowing himself to be gathered in a soft embrace, Monroe sighed into Rosalee's shoulder. A few moments passed and a question danced along his tongue. "Rosalee, do you think there's a point where...where you have to move on? To let it go?" He asked quietly.

In the following pause, Monroe kicked himself for sounding so callous. But to his surprise, as Rosalee pulled back to meet his eyes, he found calm acceptance in the place of disgust or disappointment. 

"I think there is, yes," she replied, voice barely above a whisper, "but it's not now, not yet."

Nodding firmly, Monroe gathered her into his arms, feeling and hearing her quiet sobs. It may not have seemed that way, but Rosalee cared about Nick just as much as everyone else. For once, someone needed to comfort her, not the other way around.

* * *

The next night, when Monroe lay awake once more, their phone rang. Answering before Rosalee could be disturbed, he spoke with a dull and lifeless tone. "Hello?"

"'Ello, Monroe, sorry about the time. I've just come across something I thought might be of interest to you."

Sleep-deprived brain refusing to register the possible significance behind his words, Monroe urged his friend on with a verbal nudge. "Mhmm?"

"Right, well, I was coming down to visit Shauna, via that big forest area by the back roads, and some fella came stumbling outta the trees right into the path of my truck! I got out to make sure he's okay, and the guy looked a sight but I don't think my truck did that-"

Now sitting up in bed, Monroe stared straight at the wall, chest tight and muscles wound like bow strings. "What, Mike? Who was it?"

"It's that cop friend of yours, Burkhardt. I recognise him from the news. Bit rougher lookin' but he's alive-"

Mike continued on, but Monroe didn't hear. A jolt had coursed through his body, hearing the name _Burkhardt_ and the word _alive_ in the same sentence. Adrenaline rushed his system, the shock of it almost causing him to woge. On the other side of the line, Mike was trying to regain his attention.

"Monroe? Monroe, you there?"

"Yes, yes, I'm here. Listen, Mike, where is he? Where's Nick?"

"Oh, in the backseat of my truck. He passed out on the road, I didn't want him getting run over."

"Good." Monroe jumped out of bed, startling Rosalee awake as he frantically tried to dress himself while holding the phone. "Can you bring him to my house?"

"Eh, yeah...yeah, I can do that. And after, you'll take him to the hospital, right?"

Monroe froze, a pit forming in his stomach. "How bad is he?"

The line crackled. "...pretty bad, mate. I...I honestly thought he was dead when he fell on the road."

His eyes closed for a moment, fear clawing at his insides. Once the lump in his throat cleared, Monroe spoke. "Okay. Bring him to us."

"I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

The phone went dead, and Monroe immediately went back to dressing. Rosalee stared at him, hesitant to ask the question hanging in the air. He saved her the trouble, torn between happiness, relief, and crawling terror at what on earth had happened to his best friend.

"Nick's alive, he's going to be here in twenty minutes."

Rosalee leapt from the bed, feet slapping off the hard wood floor. Her wide eyes shone in the darkness. "He called you?!"

"No," he said, throwing on a shirt, "Mile Langston did. He nearly hit him on the road." Pausing, Monroe looked to her, biting his lip. Slowly, he approached. "Rosalee, he's hurt pretty bad, by the sounds of it."

Her face changed instantly, the cool headed professional from the shop taking over. With nothing but a firm nod, she began changing, too. Once both of them were ready, and the house was lit up again, she instructed Monroe to make up the spare bedroom while she gathered supplies to help with any injuries. 

Taking him to a hospital was out of the question, at least until they knew of or treated any of his Wesen related issues. No normal doctor could help him there.

In the midst of the madness, Monroe envied how clear-headed and calm Rosalee remained. He felt like a wound spring ready to snap, pacing and wringing his hands into oblivion. In fact, Monroe was so distracted and worried that he only remembered to send the others a message when Mike's truck pulled up outside. 

The message, a mere few words, got the point across well enough.

_Nick is alive. Get over here, now._


	2. The Long Road Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick is alive and back with Monroe and Rosalee. However, something isn't right. His physical wounds are obvious, but there's something more.

The door swung open, revealing Monroe's friend Mike. Nick wasn't with him, though, and Rosalee frowned at the sight. Their anxiety clear, Mike reassured them with a swift explanation.

"He's in my truck, I didn't want to move him alone."

Monroe followed his friend to the vehicle, barely holding back a gasp at the state of the Grimm sprawled across the backseat. He never imagined seeing Nick like this, he always seemed too tough, too indestructible to be brought so low. 

Even from his position in the dark driveway, the bruising across Nick's face was visible, the purple and and yellow smeared with blood. Monroe's stomach summer-saulted, only slightly helped by the sight of Nick's chest rising and falling in shallow, rattling breaths.

"Help me, and be careful," Monroe said, leaning in to gently pull him closer.

With some slow and steady teamwork, Mike and Monroe managed to get Nick out of the car and upstairs into the spare room. Rosalee waited inside, ready to begin tending to their friend immediately.

Setting eyes on him, she felt her heart constrict inside her chest. Obviously, Rosalee knew Nick wasn't invulnerable, but even she had fallen prey to the idea he could never be _seriously_ hurt, because he's Nick. The one who always, miraculously, comes out alive and safe. Not this time.

Surveying his wounds, she internally winced. Half of his face was unrecognisable from extreme bruising, and his eye had swollen shut. Nick's wrists were rubbed raw and bloody from ropes tying him down. Rosalee pushed the image from her mind, refusing to think about it. The next step was seeing what injuries lay beneath the tattered clothing.

She peeled back the ripped shirt, recognising it as the one he left in, and felt her hands shake. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, regret and guilt pouring in like a bursting dam. "Oh, Nick..."

Monroe, returning from the driveway after seeing his friend off, raced up the stairs. He met Rosalee's eyes and saw the water in them, swiftly coming to sit on her other side. It didn't take long for him to find what had made his girlfriend's composure break.

All along the left side of his body looked like someone attacked him with a butterfly knife. Scattered cuts made a meal of his flesh, deep and shallow, some healed, others fresh. Whoever did this to him had only one intention in mind - cause as much pain as possible.

A growl rippled through Monroe's teeth, low and animalistic. Nick reacted to the sound, fretting and whimpering on the bed. Eyes widening, they both reached out to ease him down, but their touch only made things worse.

"No, no...no...please...no. No!"

"Hey, Nick, it's alright, you're with us," Monroe said, in an unsuccesful attempt to calm the increasingly distressed Grimm.

"No, please! No!"

The hoarseness in his voice made clear how often those words had been screamed. Rosalee and Monroe also learnt something new about their friend: regardless how how badly injured he was, his strength remained the same. Whether or not that had anything to do with being a Grimm, they'd think about later. In the meantime, keeping him still proved enough of a task for the moment.

All his thrashing and twisting would only worsen his wounds. Monroe grappled with him, preventing Nick from accidentally hitting Rosalee. But even with his enhanced strength, holding him down was proving to be a losing battle.

"Nick!"

Their efforts weren't getting them anywhere. Signalling for Monroe to at least keep him in the bed, Rosalee fished through her bag for a sedative. She filled the syringe as quickly as possible without making any mistakes, checking for air bubbles before inserting it into his neck. The noise he made - a strangled, despairing cry - made both the Wesen flinch. Soon, he lay still, his breathing levelling out, and his arms slowly dropping back to his sides.

"What the hell has happened to him?" Monroe muttered, unable to take his eyes from the shell of his best friend.

Rosalee huffed, covering a sniffle. "Nothing we can't fix. Now, check his legs whilst I deal with his torso."

Hands moving on autopilot, he shifted over and gently pulled Nick's trouser leg away. Which actually turned out to be extremely easy, as like his shirt, the pants were ripped and cut to pieces, leaving only a small functional area to keep his dignity. 

Monroe jumped, hearing a loud tearing sound from his right side. Glancing over, he almost laughed, seeing Rosalee with the shredded remains of the shirt in her grasp. The start of a joke nearly rolled from his tongue, but died as his gaze landed on Nick's abdomen.

The bruises on his face looked tame compared to those layered over his ribs. A mash of black, blue, yellow and purple collide around the contours if his abs, more cuts and slashes littered across the skin. The damage is so severe, if Monroe squints just a little, he can see the imprint of a pipe.

Similar wounds to his wrists mar the flesh of his ankles, and Monroe winced, phantom pain flaring over his own limbs. If he ever got his hands on the people or person responsible for this, they would pay in blood.

"I'm going to need more bandages for this," Rosalee murmured, hands still trembling on Nick's skin.

She absent-mindedly brushed back hair from his face, frowning as her fingers gently stroked his cheek. Terrible thoughts were plaguing her, awful scenarios - each one worse than the last. But right now, Nick needed her help, not emotions or tears. Help.

The front door opened, and both Monroe and Rosalee woged, ready to fight, until they heard Hank's voice float up the stairs.

"Guys?"

"I'll go."

Monroe flew down to the landing, surprised at finding the whole gang there, each one of them breathless and expectant. He didn't mind that they let themselves in. 

Trubel almost threw herself forward, dark eyes frantic. "Where is he?"

"Upstairs-" he blocked her path to said stairs. "Wait. Rosalee and I need to clean him up first, the room isn't big enough for all of us."

Hank stepped forward. "Clean him up?"

Monroe sighed, hands sliding into his pockets. He looked down. "Yeah. He, uh...he looks pretty rough."

Their faces all showed the same thing, and he let his shoulders slumped. This was a pointless fight. At the very least, they could go up and see him.

"Okay, come on, but be quiet and don't get too close."

Leading them up the stairs, Monroe prepared himself for the pain he knew was about to appear on his friend's faces. No one close to Nick could see him this way and not feel like someone punched a hole in their chest.

When they reached the spare room, Rosalee, caught in the middle of a delicate tending of a particularly nasty cut on his side, gave them a wane smile. Monroe joined her, helping prop the Grimm up a little to give her better access.

Hank sank into a chair by Nick's head, knees too weak to hold himself up. "Man...who the hell did this to him?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel bad for doing this to him ;-;


	3. The Pain of a Grimm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick wakes up again. This time, his friends realise just how much work it's going to take to get the Grimm they knew back.

Rosalee and Monroe finally finished cleaning, bandaging and sewing up the wounds that needed it after an hour or so. None of the others said a word, staring at Nick's unconscious form. They understood, seeing him like that hurt them all.

Eventually, one by one, they went down stairs to the kitchen for coffee and beer. Before joining them, Rosalee smoothed back the hair plastered to Nick's forehead, lingering a moment. When she came into the kitchen, an air of glum silence weighed down on them all.

Trubel was the one to speak up, knuckles white from clutching the back of a chair. "We need to find who did this."

She straightened, every muscle tense, wound like a spring. Rosalee rubbed a hand over her arm, unsure of what to say. It took three months for Nick to be found, (and she feared they never would have found him themselves if he hadn't managed to escape), tracking down the people responsible could be impossible. But the idea of letting them get away with it made her blood boil.

"We do, but our priority right now is Nick. The people who did this will get what they deserve, once we know he's alright," she said calmly, despite the snarl on the tip of her tongue.

Hank's head snapped up. "So you think it's more than one person?"

"Definitely," she replied, nodding firmly, "it would take more than one person, even if they're Wesen, to bring him down and keep him down."

"I agree," Monroe said, voice tightly controlled, "Nick's not a pushover, and those wounds...I've never seen him hurt that bad before."

Silence engulfed them once more. None of them knew quite how to deal with the state of their friend. Nick was the strong one, the one who saved the day and always got back up after being knocked down; and when that did happen, it took an extremely powerful opponent to do any damage. Apart from anger over the pain inflicted on Nick, they began to fear what could have done that to him.

Their introspection was shattered wide open by a scream from above their heads, gut-wrenching and laced with agony. Eyes wide, Trubel and Hank moved to run up the stairs, but were blocked by Monroe and Rosalee.

"We can't startle him," she said quickly, seeing their confusion, "he's probably disoriented and scared. We can't just rush in."

"Yeah," Monroe adds, "he'll freak. The last time I surprised Nick, I ended up on my ass."

They nodded their understanding, and Rosalee led the way, Monroe close behind just in case. The spare room had gone deadly quiet. They took the stairs slowly, hair rising on the back of their necks. Wesen instinctively feared the presence of Grimms, and the knowledge of one lurking above their heads, possibly dangerous, sent a cold shiver down their spines.

"Nick?" Monroe caught Rosalee's arm, glancing at her. "Let me go first...just in case."

Allowing him to pass, she waited a moment before following him up. The stairs creaked, and Monroe winced, knowing Nick would have heard them.

He stepped inside the room, immediately freezing at the empty bed. "Nick?"

Monroe reacted a moment too late. A small, lethal force crashed into him from the side, moving faster than a shadow. They hit the floor, pain burst over the blutbad's shoulder. Another blow came moments later, unmistakably a punch, and his head rattled off the floorboards.

"Monroe!"

"Nick, Nick! It's Monroe, get off!"

Trubel and Hank moved quickly, wrenching their friend off Monroe as Rosalee knelt beside him. He tried to sit up, head spinning, and stared across the room, where Nick thrashed furiously against their hold, face a picture of rage. 

"GET OFF ME! LET ME GO!"

They all flinched, never having heard his voice aimed at them in such a hateful, fear-filled tone. Hank and Trubel, unable to hold him any longer, staggered back as he pushed away from them, breathing heavily. His eyes darted around the room, bloodshot and flighty, like a trapped animal. 

Rosalee gently touched her partner's split lip, brow knit in concern. Her eyes drifted up, seeing Hank and Trubel unsure of how to approach the Grimm backing himself up against the wall, and slowly stood. "Nick...you're okay, you're safe. It's us, you got out."

His scathing gaze landed on her, accusation rising in them. "How could you do this to me? I trusted you!"

Stepping back, Rosalee glanced at the others. "Nick, we-"

"Enough! Enough lies! Stop twisting my head!"

His voice turned hoarse, breaking off in a grief-stricken sob. Rosalee's heart broke, and she sighed, exchanging a look with Monroe. It was clear, whatever his captors did to him, they didn't stop at physical torture. Someone had gotten inside his mind, and now he saw them as a threat.

"Nick, please, listen to me, we haven't hurt you. Tell us, tell us who took you," she asked, hands raised in an act of parlay. 

The reaction he gave, was not one she expected. With a noise almost like a snarl, he roared at her. "It was you!"

Before Nick could lunge for her, Monroe, Hank and Trubel all piled on him, struggling to subdue him despite the numerous wounds and tight bandaging restricting his movements. His panic at being restrained became obvious immediately, shouting and yelling incomprehensible words that sounded strangely like words from the Grimm books.

Rosalee rushed to her bag, fetching another sedative. But as she stepped up to administer the drug, she found herself looking directly into his eyes. He glanced at the needle, and the anger in his eyes vanished, peeling back to reveal a scared, vulnerable boy who pleaded with her. 

"Please...just kill me. I'm sorry...whatever I did, whatever I did to make you hate me so much, I'm sorry. Please...don't hurt me anymore."

Forcing herself to bite down on her tongue, Rosalee pushed back the tears once again threatening to cascade down her cheeks. His wounded, sad tone felt like a punch to the gut, and the others' faces dropped, none of them ready to hear those words.

"Nick," Rosalee said softly, carefully, holding his eyes, "I promise, we are not going to hurt you. You have done nothing wrong. I'm so sorry this has happened to you, but we're going to do everything we can to help."

Something flickered over his face, surprise, shock, or perhaps hope. But it faded as she sank the needle into his neck, cradling his cheek in an act of comfort as he slumped in their hold.

They laid him back on the bed, being careful not to jostle his wounds too much. Rosalee readjusted his sling, and tightened the bandage over his shoulder and abdomen. She lamented that he didn't even look peaceful while unconscious; whatever horrors he experienced in those woods followed him into his dreams.

Trubel abruptly put her fist through the wardrobe, the sound barely masking her sob. She buried her face in her hands, shoulders straining against the leather of her jacket. Rosalee immediately brought her into a hug, stroking her hair and letting the younger woman deal with her emotions.

Hank hadn't been able to look away from Nick. To Monroe, the man's thoughts were indescribable, as usual. But in this moment, he could make a rough guess, because he was probably thinking the same thing.

"Look, man, we're going to go after who did this, I promise. But first, we need to know what we're going up against," he said, trying not to look at his friend in a last ditch attempt to control his animalistic instincts. 

Hank's lips twitched, more in an ironic smile, than anything else. "Yeah...usually it was Nick who knew that, or figured it out."

"I doubt he could tell us, even when he gets better."

Hank and Monroe looked at Rosalee, still cradling Trubel in her arms. She continued, elaborating under their questioning gazes.

"He genuinely believes we did this to him, which means something has messed with his mind. We're talking Wesen, and a mean one, too. There's no telling if what they did will wear off."

Monroe's brow creased, a spark of anger in his eye noted by a red colouring. "What do you mean?"

She sighed, casting a solemn gaze to Nick. "I'm saying whoever did this, did it for two reasons. The first, to make sure they couldn't be identified. The second, to isolate Nick and cause him as much pain as they could. If they are what I think, then this idea that we hurt him isn't going to go away."

"Then...what do we do?" Hank asked, desperation making him forget to keep his mask up, allowing the grief to slip through in his voice.

Rosalee patted Trubel's arm as she straightened again, eyes fixed on the floor. "We need to earn his trust back, convince him that we're telling the truth."

"How long is that going to take?" Trubel asked weakly, sniffling.

"A while," she answered, sighing in resignation.

Truthfully, they were so focused on finding Nick they never stopped to think about his condition when they did. Now, they were unprepared and, frankly, emotionally raw from it all. 

But now they had a purpose. Two, actually. Help Nick recover, and find the bastards that took him. Without much debate, the jobs were decided.

Rosalee and Monroe would stay at the house and look after Nick, while Trubel and Hank went looking through some books. With help from Renard, they could even search the forest where he was found. No one at the precinct would say no to helping Nick.

Only, the true extent of the damage done to Nick wasn't visible yet. The Grimm lay in bed, dead to the world, but in his mind, a war raged. A war on his psyche. 

He didn't want to believe his friends would do this to him, a tiny piece of his old self still fighting back. The last chance of saving Nick lay there, deep in his mind. He just hoped they reached him in time.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to include more of Hank's feelings in this. I feel like people often forget how long he's known Nick, we never really see how close they are in fics, so hopefully I did an okay job of portraying that :)


End file.
